


Small Comforts

by glorious_spoon



Series: Hurt/Comfort Bingo 2018 [7]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Homesickness, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-11 00:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16465025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: "Do you ever miss home?" Steve asks her.





	Small Comforts

**Author's Note:**

> For a tumblr prompt by zivitz. Also fills the 'loss of home/shelter' square on my H/C Bingo card.

“Do you ever miss home?” Steve asks, handing her a steaming cup of chai. Natasha cups the fragile stoneware between her palms, breathing in the warm, spicy smell of it. It’s a small comfort, but small comforts are necessary. Especially now.

“Russia, you mean?”

Steve shrugs. It’s a small, careful gesture; Steve has always had a better deadpan than most people give him credit for, but she can read the caution in the lines of his shoulders, the aborted flutter of his hands. The belated realization that he might have opened a bigger can of worms than he meant to with that question.

There are not many people she can trust with her history. Barnes was one of them, but he’s gone. Steve is another, but this isn’t a good time for it. Not with the grief that clings to him like a scrim of poison, not with a week of sleepless nights settled into her bones and reminding her that she is not the child she once was.

She isn’t old, even compared to other un-enhanced humans. General Okoye has ten years on her at least. But Black Widows were finely honed machines, and they were never meant to outlive their usefulness. She isn’t old, but her bones ache in the morning, the ghosts of old injuries asserting themselves. Her reflexes slow after days without sleep. If her life had gone the way her handlers at the Red Room meant it to, she’d be a few years out from decommission now.

Sometimes, it seems like that might be a relief.

It’s not something she knows how to explain to Steve, who is dogged persistence down to his core. Even if she did, they don’t have time. General Okoye will be here soon, with M’Baku and Queen Ramonda and anyone else they can find from what’s left of Wakanda’s highest leadership. They have work to do.

Steve is still looking at her. He looks haggard too, an exhaustion that’s more than just physical on his too-young face. Behind him, the window opens on a glorious vista of Wakandan countryside, neat rows of crops that will wither in the heat without enough people to tend them.

“I’ll miss my apartment,” Natasha says finally. There are no pets there, of course; not even so much as a houseplant. She’s not given to accumulating sentimental tokens. But the bedroom windows overlook a small green brook that’s folded into the narrow stretch of space between old buildings, and the floor is worn smooth, warm from the ancient radiators and pleasant to walk on. The old woman next door is a good cook, and lonely with her children overseas, so Natasha has shared more than one comfortable meal with her. There is a coffee shop nearby that sells the best pastries she’s ever tasted.

Small pleasures. But necessary ones.

Steve nods, looking down at his chai. “Me and Bucky—” he pauses, almost incrementally. He does not stumble over the name, but when he speaks again his voice is rougher. “We lived together for a couple of years, before the war.”

She nods. She already knew that; there’s not much of Steve’s early life that isn’t a matter of public record. But that’s not really the point here.

“Lousy old tenement building. There was only one window, and it overlooked a garbage alley. Shared a bathroom with nine other families. Never thought I’d miss it, but—” he shrugs and doesn’t finish.

“I know,” Natasha says quietly, and sinks into the seat next to him. He offers his hand; after a moment, she takes it. A warm, brief press of fingers; a reminder that they’re both still here.

It’s not much, but even a small comfort is better than nothing.


End file.
